she took her arms and stretched them to the ceiling, trying to grab the words right out of the song, right out of my mouth.
how so much joy could collide with so much longing was astounding; cosmic in its shattering weight upon that little moment while the soup simmered.
and the ipod shuffled.
next she gathered herself in my lap while i sang her every word to "fix you", and i doused her in the lyrics and put my cheek to hers and stroked her hair as if the song transformed into some kind of kitchen lullaby.
she wore a quiet smile the whole time.
and a smirk when i said, "wait, here comes the guitar part. . ." and "are you ready for the drums? here they are . . . oh wait, not yet . . . okay, now here they are . . ."
a fragment of a second of my life, but there it is, the moment when i pass on the love of a beautiful pop song to my daughter. she cannot escape the power. she is doomed forever.
and then, when the moments had passed and the soup called to be stirred and she shimmied off my lap she asked, "why are the songs always about love?"
and i told her that most songs are about some kind of love, that its one of the most important things to sing about, and that sometimes, when you are a young person, who you love is the only thing you think about some days.
"when you were a teenager did you think about who you loved?"
and i told her all the time. all the time. all the time.
